Robots will face tasks that test mobility, manipulation, dexterity, perception and operator control mechanisms. The human-sized robots might have to drive a vehicle, walk across rocky terrain or climb a ladder.

"The DARPA challenge shifts the emphasis of robot technology to autonomy and designing robots that can work together with humans to leverage each other's strengths," said Jeff Trinkle, a computer science professor and director of the Rensselaer Computer Science Department Robotics Lab in the School of Science. "There are indications that future challenges will require teams of humans and robots to work together in tight spaces."

"With a Boston Dynamics Atlas and brainpower from Lockheed Martin, UPenn and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Trooper has the facilities and the staff to beat," it said.

When DARPA announced the competition in April 2012, it was looking for help in designing and building robots that could respond to such disasters as the one at Fukushima, where radiation levels kept emergency workers from getting inside the plant where they could have vented the hydrogen that instead exploded, spreading radiation throughout the neighboring countryside. The nuclear meltdown followed a March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Teams could either develop their own robot and control software or focus exclusively on developing software. The Trooper team chose to focus on software, and was one of nine teams in the current round that received an Atlas humanoid robot developed by Boston Dynamics.

The Atlas is 6-foot-2, weighs 330 pounds and includes such human features as a torso, two arms, hands, legs and feet.

"The robot looks cool — a lot like Terminator," Dong said. "Yet is struggles to perform even the simplest human task."

The highest scoring teams in the current round will advance to the finals, to be held toward the end of 2014.